Traditional “brick and mortar” retailers, such as grocery stores, are often in close proximity to customers based on the presence of the traditional “brick and mortar” retail stores in customers' towns and neighborhoods. However, despite their close proximity to customers, traditional “brick and mortar” retailers, such as grocery stores, have faced challenges in competing with electronic commerce (“e-commerce”) retailers who ship from distribution centers or warehouses directly to customers.
As an example, some customers may prefer the ease and speed of ordering via websites over the time needed to enter a traditional “brick and mortar” retail store, select items, and complete a checkout process to pay for items. A drawback to the web based ordering model may be the shipping time necessary to move the items from the distribution center or warehouse to the customer. To reduce the time associated with shipping items from distribution centers or warehouses, e-commerce retailers are attempting to move distribution centers or warehouses ever closer to customers, driving up e-commerce retailer infrastructure costs. Another drawback to the web based order model may be that customers are forced to use a website to place an order, however customers are not always capable of accessing a website, for example when driving a car.
Additionally, retailers, including both traditional “brick and mortar” retailers and electronic commerce (“e-commerce”) retailers, may have multiple locations and/or multiple sources in their supply chains from which orders for items may be filled. Current order management systems cannot support the needs of retailers to fill orders from multiple locations and/or multiple sources.